


Dog Eat Dog World

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [45]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse (Web Series)
Genre: Season 8, Vietnam War, s08 e05: Saving Private Ray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26585884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Andi, Crash, Aquamarine, and Wyatt have returned after going missing for three years. However, not everything is sunshine and rainbows; even as Bruno celebrates the return of his granddaughter, clouds gather on the horizon.
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	Dog Eat Dog World

Bruno barely noticed his surroundings as his feet carried him along the well-worn path to the metapod room in the wake of Zenda’s request.

For three years, he’d made the effort to come here as many times a week as he could manage. In the first year, he’d pushed as much responsibility onto Patric as he could manage, and come here nearly every day. Jump after jump, mission after mission to try and find their missing friends - he’d been to so many strange and fantastic metaverses now, he could barely remember most of them. And yet still, they hadn’t been able to find a single clue to the whereabouts of their absent friends.

As time went by, his desperation had mounted even as they continued to hit dead end after dead end. And with that passage, his responsibilities increased; he had less time to visit the pod room, less time for fact-finding missions out in the metaverse when the situation here needed him - and his team - so urgently. Rogue metapilots using avatar-bled powers to commit crimes, terrorist organizations making demands while using 00742 plasma weaponry - the list went on and on. Bruno Hamilton, ex-Marine Sergeant and freelance operator, had been able to devote nearly his entire time to finding his granddaughter; Bruno Hamilton, Director of the Metaversal Task Force, could barely find ten minutes in the day to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Every government wanted his time, every mission _here_ in Prime was a priority, and every diplomat was too important to fob off on Patric. After the first year, Bruno could barely find six empty hours a week to go into a pod and try yet another dead-end mission. Instead, his days filled themselves with paperwork and meetings, plane flights to foreign countries, and testimonies given before every major power in the world. None of them had wanted to work with him at first, and even after Patric’s “little fixes” it was still an unremitting hell of political doubletalk and schmoozing. He was a soldier, through and through; a few of his avatars had been reasonable at the political arena, but that just meant he didn’t actually strangle any puffed-up two-bit idiots who wanted the prestige of talking to him about problems in their country more than they wanted to actually have him _solve_ those problems or anyone else’s.

Bruno’d spent so long wishing for Andi and the others to return - _especially_ Crash - that he almost hadn’t believed it when Reese had told him. The robot had been tasked with monitoring security systems for every major Metaverse Taskforce outpost (and a few other places that Patric had either added or “acquired” feeds to) being as how he needed neither food nor sleep - though explaining to the appropriations committee why Bruno needed enough beer in a month to float a reasonably-sized barge had been an experience Bruno devoutly wished never to repeat - and when he’d told Bruno that the Reliance had returned, Bruno couldn’t find it in himself to believe the much larger robot. Not until he’d seen their missing members with his own two eyes; holding Andi had been like getting back a piece of his heart he hadn’t known was missing, while seeing Crash had been a relief. Someone he trusted, someone who knew more about this metaverse stuff than he did - someone he could step down in favor of, and get back to what he knew best; boots on the ground.

And then they’d interrogated Strickland.

Bruno tried to avoid torture whenever possible - and when you were 6’ 4" and built like a brick shithouse, ‘whenever possible’ was basically all the time. The Crash he remembered hadn’t been fond of it either, preferring to either eliminate a threat outright or get answers to his questions some other way. But he’d hit Strickland right in the throat - the sickening pop of a crushed trachea was a sound with with Bruno was well familiar - and then used his bond-given powers to force the man to require oxygen to the point of passing out. Dr. Clarkson had been standing by with the emergency tracheotomy kit - _a knife and the tube out of a pen Jesus **Christ**_ \- and hadn’t seemed too fussed about having to perform an emergency tracheotomy on someone who was in their custody, but for Bruno it had raised a flag he found impossible to ignore.

Then Crash had started talking about expanding the unilateral power the Metaverse Task Force enjoyed within its own walls, and all the hairs on the back of Bruno’s neck had stood up.

He’d spent three years - _three mortal years_ \- building up the foundations of trust with the government, with other agencies, with the people of the world in order to get the job that needed doing done. And even having as much power here as he did stuck in his craw; Harvin was a good sounding board to make sure he didn’t cross the line, but the fact that sometimes he couldn’t tell where the line was any more had concerned him. _I try to never break the Geneva Convention in my work_ , he’d told Mac once, and the kid had responded with _I don’t think the Geneva Convention covers other universes_. Maybe the kid had been right, maybe the kid had been wrong, but Bruno had had to skirt the Convention more in his tenure as Director than in the past four decades of his life put together. He’d been looking forward to handing over the reins to someone he’d known to have an unshakable moral compass.

But he wasn’t sure the man who’d come back was even Crash any more.

Going on a mission with him hadn’t been terribly enlightening, either; Agrippa had been a very assertive avatar, and Bruno had difficulty seeing through the exaggerated mannerisms the man used like a smokescreen to Crash underneath. Then, too, while the setting was one Bruno had become unfortunately familiar with over the past three years, it was one he still wasn’t comfortable in. It didn’t matter how long he’d been out of the jungle, he’d always be a soldier at heart and he’d stepped back to let Machiavelli deal with the assorted kings and queens of Renaissance Europe they’d encountered on the mission. Machiavelli was a soldier too, and a damn good one, but he was also a far more political animal than Bruno himself would ever want to be and Bruno was content to let him deal with that side of things.

Then, when they’d returned from 1512 Europe, Crash had declared he was going to go find Krieger and had swanned off with Andi and Wyatt in tow. Bruno had let him go partly because he did want to know what, if any, information Krieger had on the situation at hand, and partly because he wasn’t sure he could stop him. He’d had a moment - just a moment, before he shoved it where it didn’t need thinking about - of almost paralyzing fear at the thought of Andi going on a mission with Crash and this time not making it back, but it was irrational and he knew it. Andi was competent enough to hold her own and smart enough to know when to fall back; he trusted her judgement. She’d be fine.

So consumed was he by his thoughts that Bruno barely noticed as his hands followed the familiar routine of opening up the pod, making sure it was clean - sometimes the jump back could be…messy - and getting in before pulling it closed around him. It wasn’t until the bright, white light of the metaverse pulled him from his body that he remembered he was jumping at all, and by that time it was too late to recall his scattered thoughts.

Landing back in Vietnam was expected; the familiar, muggy heat, the whine of insects and equipment, the rumble of machinery and men. About the only difference he noticed right away was the fact he wasn’t sweating; his uniform wasn’t bunch uncomfortably up at the armpits and crotch absolutely soaked with salty sweat and it took him a moment to remember why. His avatar was foremost; his distraction while jumping had put him on the back foot, but for now that was enough. Corporal Jethro Worth was an anthropomorphic beagle, a fact that was immediately and jarringly obvious when he started panting to try and deal with the muggy jungle heat. It didn’t work as well as it did back in Worth’s home of Alabama, of course, but Bruno had yet to encounter any cooling methods that were available in 1968 that worked to any real degree in the jungle and he would have been surprised to find anything different here.

There were distinct advantages to letting the avatar have the lead. For one, Bruno had been a sergeant longer than he’d been anything else, and while he could certainly work with other sergeants when the situation demanded it getting a dressing-down from the enormous bull of a bull wearing sergeant’s stripes wouldn’t have sat well. _Especially_ since his avatar’s rank was corporal. And for another advantage, being so far in avatar meant he got the a decent view into the avatar’s knowledge and memories - most of it Bruno knew from his own time in Vietnam, of course, but the codes and callsigns were different to make up for the changes in species and the weaponry was a little more dated than his own stint. The M14 was a heavier, more solid weight than his M16 had been, and if he remembered correctly it was a much lower fire rate for more stopping power.

Of course, it also had a kick like a mule and could be hard to control, but for some reason Bruno didn’t think he’d have much of a problem with that any more. Of course, he’d have to step up to make sure Worth had access to his enhanced strength but he’d want to do that anyway if they were in combat. Bruno had more than four decades worth of experience on the corporal, and he had a responsibility to keep the man…dog…safe. It’d been more than three years, yet the phantom sensation of having pebbles where ribs should be and something more akin to fruit pulp than organs spilling out through pressure tears in his skin still woke him sweating from nightmares more often than he’d like; Ramsbottom hadn’t been a bad man, and certainly undeserving of what had happened to him on Bruno’s watch. It hadn’t happened again since, but he’d learned his lesson and remained vigilant.

As if sensing his thoughts, Bruno could feel his avatar stepping aside a little and leaving room for him. Pushing up, they both stood equal in their small, shared body as the rest of the team got themselves sorted out. Worth had already packed their kit up, for all they had another three hours to wait until the PBR was ready for them. Bruno grimaced internally at the orders they’d been given; he’d done work all over Vietnam - and the surrounding countries, not that you’d find those entries on his service record - but the fighting in the Bà Nà Hills had been among the worst as far as ambushes and unexpected engagements went. The hills were lush, green, and full of nasty little places where the enemy could hole up and patrols would never even see them. Fights started quickly and ended faster, and casualties were almost a given. It made sense for an LRRP to be deployed to the area, but that didn’t make keeping Corporal Worth alive any easier.

And, of course, Zenda had given them a secondary objective; find and save Ray Delamano from a POW camp somewhere in this conflict. A quick canvas showed that none of the avatars knew or knew of a Ray Delamano, and Bruno suppressed a sigh as Thomas fiddled determinedly with the clunky radio assigned to the unit. Unless Ray was a colonel or better - unlikely - the radio probably wouldn’t produce any actionable intelligence; John Stone’s computer hacking ability had likewise drawbacks. If they needed to find the records of Delamano, they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.

After some prodding, Stone ended up leaning on a records clerk until the man - well, actually he was a sheep and the sideways pupils would likely haunt Bruno for a while - gave them the records they needed. Private Ray Delamano, not terribly distinguished but not a bad soldier, had been captured three days ago…in the Bà Nà Hills. It seemed that once again, the Metaverse had sent them approximately where they needed to be, and as they shifted their gear into the PBR - crewed by what appeared to be several rodents and a goose - Bruno couldn’t help but relish the sensation of familiarity with both the environment and his situation in it. He’d do the diplomacy, the politics if he had to - but he’d much, much rather have his boots on the ground and a clear objective ahead.

 _This_ was what he was trained to do.


End file.
